Feature
- Do You Hate Your Partner, Too?
- California Teen Avoids Heavy Sentencing by Passing the Buck
- Wanna Buy Your Teenager a Padded Push-Up Bra?
- Vampires in Texas!
- These Guys Are As Bad As Westboro Baptist Church
- Funny Letters Sent to Women's Magazines
- Women's Ski Jumping: Still Not a 'Real' Sport
- Will the World Be Pro-Choice Soon?
- Are We Getting Too Lazy to Even Divorce?
- Forever 21's Maternity Line: Glamorizing Teen Pregnancy?
Sunday afternoons were pretty predictable when I was a kid — if my siblings and I behaved in church, we got McDonald’s for lunch (which was total crap, by the way … we never behaved in church but always got McDonald’s anyway. I think my dad just needed his weekly Big Mac fix.), then off to my grandparents’ house. One of the highlights of going over there (for me, anyway … my sister liked to sneak sugar cubes and my brother preferred listening to music with my uncle), where it smelled of pipe smoke I will never forget, was the Sunday edition of the Boston Globe. You know, the one where the comics were in full color! I loved all of them—from Beetle Bailey to For Better or For Worse to Peanuts—but there will always be a special place in my heart for Little Orphan Annie. And now, after 85 years of the little red-headed, blank-eyed girl, she’s finally … uh, retired.
While Annie inspired a popular Broadway musical, Hollywood movie and radio and TV programs, the once-legendary strip is carried by fewer than 20 newspapers today. For fans and occasional readers, it’s a sad ending to an important piece of Americana.
Yeah. I’m feeling nostalgic and will probably spend the drive home from work (my last day of school for the year, by the way … yay!) listening to show tunes. I’m also feeling kind of betrayed.
According to Times columnist Michael Taube:
Those of us on the right of the political spectrum also should pay homage to the strip’s historical role in promoting capitalism, a free-market economy and political conservatism to a wider audience.
Annie’s creator, Harold Gray, was once described by comics historian Coulton Waugh as “Republican and conservative to his toenails.” During the Great Depression, the cartoonist was a fierce opponent of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal. He detested labor unions and communism. He railed against corruption in all aspects of society, especially Big Business.
Gray eventually morphed his political and economic philosophies into his creation. As noted by Richard Marshall in the book “America’s Great Comic Strip Artists,” “Annie’s homilies and examples of self-reliance and realistic optimism struck a chord with millions of readers who formed a fanatical and loyal corps of followers.” But it went much deeper than that. Marshall also wrote that Annie became a “personalized creation in which [Gray's] own voice obviously predominated, yet one that featured a succession of characters and situations so vivid as to move adherents to tears and detractors to impotent fury over events in the ‘lives’ of mere paper actors.”
What? This is how I felt when I realized that C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia were really a Biblical allegory, or that Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings mirrors settings and actions of World Wars I and II. But not Daddy Warbucks, right? He’s not really just a symbol for the American Dream, is he?
This is especially true with respect to one of Gray’s main characters, Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks. Liberals and socialists typically viewed him as a tough, greedy businessman who would crush his enemies like bugs. Meanwhile, conservatives and right-leaning liberals often regarded Warbucks as a successful, hardworking financial tycoon.
Which view is correct? I’m in the latter camp, so my position is obvious. For nonpolitical types, it depends on whether you support the character’s positions about Democrats (distrusted them), free markets (supported them), family values (true love for his little orphan girl), and promoting an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay (believed rich and poor should follow this mantra). If you do, you’re pro-Warbucks.
And there’s more:
It’s also worth mentioning Annie’s significant role in transforming political conservatism.
Left-leaning comics historian Jeet Heer said in a May 2009 interview that the strip “helped reshape conservatism in America, giving birth in the 1930s to a form of cultural populism that you can still see on Fox News.” Heer’s point is well-taken. Gray shifted from progressive Republicanism to more modern conservative positions opposing liberal elites, smug leftist thinking and individuals who refused to respect individual rights and freedoms. Conservatives like Clare Boothe Luce, Ronald Reagan and various National Review editors were big fans of Gray’s strip, and this had a positive effect on the evolution of their future political and economic positions.
Of course, the comic as it existed until June 13th was far different, what Taube refers to as “a pale imitation of its former self. The conservative-oriented political commentary is a distant memory.” It’s funny, I have two degrees in English (one is a graduate degree that allows me to put fancy letters after my last name), and I usually pick up on deeper meaning pretty quickly (I read both Narnia and LOTR when I was in second or third grade —my teachers couldn’t stand me) and I totally missed this. Perhaps it’s because I missed Annie’s heyday.
And I have to give credit to our beloved Zelda Lily commenter Joey, who both tipped us off to this and famously asked in the accompany e-mail, “I wonder if Ann Coulter was named after her?”
Leaping Lizards! What are your thoughts?
You Might Also Like ...
-
-
10
When Obama won,I sang Tomorrow,Tomorrow.I love you tomorrow,your always a day away!
I’ve never read the comic, but it strikes me as a bit odd that a comic should be so heavily politically influenced. I prefer my comics to be of the unbiased comedy variety.
Anyone who lived thru the depression saw how much politics shaped economies,and economies influenced your life. They never wanted to relive those times. My mothers family nearly starved to death during the depression.
The big question in all this is,did the liberal policies of the New Deal help end the depression or prolong it. What came first,the chicken or the egg?
I guess DADDY WARBUCKS wasn’t a big enough tip-off for you, hm?
[...] Little Orphan Annie Is A Republican? – Zelda Lily [...]
Jesus, are those Washington Post quotes right-wing biased or what?
Oh, excuse me, Washington TIMES.
“One of the highlights of going over there (for me, anyway … my sister liked to sneak sugar cubes and my brother preferred listening to music with my uncle), where it smelled of pipe smoke I will never forget, was the Sunday edition of the Boston Globe. ”
sloppy.
[...] Little Orphan Annie Is A Republican? – Zelda Lily [...]